


Six Months Since Bitter Springs

by paintpaw



Series: Sunset Sasha [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Drug Withdrawal, Found Family, Gen, Great Khans - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, The Great Khans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24217858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintpaw/pseuds/paintpaw
Summary: “Someone should tell him we’re sick of this shit,” McMurphy kicks the ground, sending a cloud of red dust into the air, “Sick of fighting the NCR, sick of crying about Bitter Springs.”Sasha sits up suddenly, “We are.”He points to the centre of Red Rock. It took the Khans less than a month to rebuild their training ring. Before they’d even tried to learn to farm again, they were building dummies dressed as NCR soldiers. Even now there were Khans practising their wrestling in the middle of it.“But they’re not.”Sasha is a Khan unlike Khans, who wants to convince his tribe they're going down the wrong path.Also I wanted to write about Great Khans 😏
Series: Sunset Sasha [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813387
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Six Months Since Bitter Springs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seren0n](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seren0n/gifts).



> The Khans honestly deserve more lore and more love so I'm gonna sit in my hole and make headcanons about them with my friend >:((
> 
> Lots of headcanons here, some things just touched and not later developed, I'm just having fun yknow

Six months since Bitter Springs.

Six months of Red Rock.

Six months of Followers desperately trying to teach mourning warriors.

Sasha lays as he often does, against the sandstone walls of the cavern, his head in the shade and his legs in the sun. For the first time in his life, he can read the back of the tin of Mentats in his pocket.

_MED-TEK MENTATS™️_

_Ever found yourself looking for that extra edge during an interview for your dream job? What about while writing that essay you’ve been putting off all semester? Or what about trying to pass that entrance exam? Or maybe your art just needs a little something special. Look no further than MED-TEK MENTATS™️!_

_Containing only the most powerful nootropic as its active ingredient, MED-TEK MENTATS™️ are guaranteed* to increase** your mental processing speed*** and your increase your memory-related functions****!_

_MED-TEK MENTATS™️ come in a variety of artificial flavours including Berry, Orange, Grape and Classic Cherry! Give them all a try today!_

A lot of the words remain meaningless. Interview, essay, semester, exam. Nootropic. Sasha runs his calloused thumbs against the embossed letters. There’s some smaller writing at the bottom, but the paint is so faded, someone with Sasha’s very basic reading skills would find it impossible to make out.

“Are you still gonna talk to Papa?” Jessup is as he’s always been, asking his friends what the plan is. He squats in the shade of a yurt, knowing full well his fair and freckled skin burns easier than the wood of a fire under the summer sun. 

Sasha eyes him over the tin, “I am.”

“Gonna use those?” The nod Jessup gives the Mentats is an uncertain one. Many feared the mental clarity brought about by Mentats, it made the hopelessness of the wasteland all too clear and left you stupid and slow for days afterwards. People, like Jessup, who feared such a thing preferred the delirious haze that was Jet. 

“I might.” 

“Doesn’t matter what you do, he’s not gonna listen.” McMurphy stands tall against the sun, arms folded and looking down at Sasha. He’s the only one of the three of them without a chem based vice.

The pills rattle inside the tin as Sasha turns it over in his hands. He doesn’t need them to know McMurphy is right.  
  
“ _Someone_ has to try.” 

McMurphy sighs, ever the older brother telling the younger two not to pick fights with the big kids, “That _someone_ ought to be Regis, not you.”

“But he’s not gonna either,” Jessup interjects, he turns to look squarely at the other man on the ground, “Tell him, Sasha, what Regis said to you.” 

It’s a wonder Jessup can never tell people these things himself.

“Regis said the Khans aren’t ready for that kinda change. That we have to let everyone mourn. Wait for people to see the truth for themselves.” Sasha talks as he picks at the paintwork on the tin until it builds up under his fingernails. 

“Someone should tell him we’re sick of this shit,” McMurphy kicks the ground, sending a cloud of red dust into the air, “Sick of fighting the NCR, sick of crying about Bitter Springs.”

Sasha sits up suddenly, “ _We_ are.” 

He points to the centre of Red Rock. It took the Khans less than a month to rebuild their training ring. Before they’d even tried to learn to farm again, they were building dummies dressed as NCR soldiers. Even now there were Khans practising their wrestling in the middle of it. 

“But _they’re_ not.” 

***

Six months since Bitter Springs.

Six hours since the Followers gave up on them.

The longhouse is hotter than even the desert outside. Always is. Always full of people and open fires. Sasha can feel the sweat beading under his long hair. Another downside to Mentats is being acutely aware of everything against your skin. The fur lining inside his jacket; the bobby pins buried in his hair; the sweat on his brow.

McMurphy and Jessup hang by the door. Jessup sways from foot to foot, anxious energy burning itself away until McMurphy elbows him in the ribs and tells him to stop.

“Sasha. You come before me today with the same request you’ve made for six months,” Papa Khan talks with an exhausted tone as though speaking to an unruly child, “What makes you think today you will make me change my mind.”

“I’m just asking you to listen.”

“I listen every time you come here, Sasha. It’s _you_ who will not listen.”

That stings. Papa is well known for his stubbornness. The idea that Sasha himself is being just as infuriatingly stubborn as the old man who sat before was not one that settles well in his mind. 

His eyes drift to the left, to Regis, who nods for him to continue.

Sasha takes a breath of hot longhouse air. It smells like smoke and alcohol, “We need to stop kicking the cazador’s nest. It’s only going to make things worse.”

Papa Khan leans back in his seat, “I do not control the will of my people, if I did, you would not be asking such a thing of me. Tell me, why should I deny us the glory of killing the people who killed our kin.”

“I’m not asking to deny us glory, I’m asking to keep us safe. For every group of soldiers we avoid, another group of Khans keep breathing.” 

“I understand your concerns Sasha, as your chief it’s my duty to keep you all safe. But we are Khans, we are a strong people. And yet the army whose name will not be spoken under this roof grows stronger. How can we allow that?”

“They’ll grow no matter what we do, it’s not about allowing it.”

Papa takes his bottle of beer from the table and raises it like a toast, “I disagree. Every roadblock we give them is a candle to the people we have lost.”

Sasha closes his eyes. Behind him, a murmur of agreement travels through the longhouse, the clink of glasses and quiet cheers. McMurphy looks away. 

“I know that. We _should_ honour our people.” Sasha knows himself that he is beginning to falter--like he’s already lost the argument. Arguing with Papa is like tracking your own footprints in the sand, but still he keeps going, “But this isn’t a roadblock. To them, it’s target practice.”

Papa sets the beer down and leans his arms against the table. His eyes soften, Sasha could almost imagine him pleading, “I have always known you to be a warrior of a different breed, Sasha. But a man with such thoughts in his head will get ensnared in his own mind and choke.

“You can see it in the Followers. Their minds spin too fast and it hurts them. They imagine all the ways the world could fall apart and it dampens the fires in their hearts into embering coals. I do not want to see the same in you.”

Perhaps it’s fair to say it already has.

“I just--” Sasha licks his lips, “I can’t just stand here and watch our people throw their lives away over this.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“This!” Sasha throws his arms out and gestures around him, though Papa’s eyes stay fixed on his, “We’re doing shit just because we’re mad not because it’ll actually help. That trade deal I helped set up with the Fiends? Sure it’ll make us feel better for a little while but it’s no good long term. Shit, we could have set up trade with the Followers. Would have taken a while to start making money but at least we’d have gotten some of our respect back.”

Somewhere along the lines, he misses the warning look Regis throws in his direction.

“You don’t understand Sasha, it’s not as easy as that.” Papa chooses his words carefully. 

“Don’t I?” Sasha laughs bitterly, “You didn’t have to go see those _freaks_ hiding in that Vault. I had to tell Diane never send anyone alone down there. They had people in fucking cages begging for our help.”

Regis, with squared shoulders, goes to say something. Probably something wise and defusing. But Papa beats him to it.

“No. You _don’t_ understand.”

Sasha’s own raised voice surprises him, feeling the words burn on his throat, “We came to you and asked: which is better, trying to establish something with the Followers or with the Fiends and you said Fiends because it fucks with NCR more.”

Not his exact wording but close enough.

“Vegas only listens to caps. And the Fiend’s work disrupts any soldiers who may come our way.”

“You talk about them like they’re not ready to tear us apart the second they find out we’re not carrying chems! What about us?”

Papa sighs. He seems to understand what Sasha is getting at, “If you think I enjoy seeing my people suffer and live in squalor Sasha, you are dangerously misguided.”

“Well I haven’t seen any proof otherwise! All you seem to do now is sit in this fucking house and seeth over the NCR.”

“Do _not_ speak to me in that way.” Papa’s voice is loud enough to make Sasha think he hasn’t been shouting at all, “The NCR is our enemy. When we are strong, we will best them. But until then, we will cause them anguish in any way we can.”

“But why? Why do we need to keep throwing ourselves at NCR--what’s the point? It--” Sasha actually falters, “It feels like you’re turning into that man you always told us stories about. That Darion.”

When Sasha stops talking he can feel the intensity in the room, only elevated by the Mentats.

“I’m doing what I can for my people and _you_ are refusing to see it.” Papa Khan is standing now. Regis raises a placating hand but it’s smacked aside, “ _You_ are a foolish child who does not understand the real world, cub.” 

The longhouse is silent save for his voice and the crackle of fire. Even though Papa is an old man, he towers over Sasha’s much smaller frame. 

Sasha just stands there.

For probably the first time in his life, his gut twists in anger when he looks into Papa Khan’s weather-beaten face. He doesn’t see a man who loves him and every other Khan like his own children. He sees an old man leading them to their death.

Revenge is a drug like any other.

After turning on his heel without another word and storming out, Sasha welcomes the comparatively clean air of the canyon over the suffocating heat of the longhouse. Dust scatters as his boots pound the ground, trying to get as far away from the building as possible.

Boiling blood makes his hands shake with violent intent. He wants to throw something against the ground hard enough to break. He wants to punch something. Tear his hair out. The fury of a man sick of being chided and belittled. 

That anger comes to a head when Jessup catches his arm. 

Of the three of them, Jessup least of all expected Sasha’s sudden ability to shove so hard. His back hits the ground in a cloud of red dust but rolls back onto his feet with the ease of a man who’s spent a lifetime learning to fight. 

When he tries to chase Sasha again, McMurphy presses a hand to his chest.

“Leave him.” 

***

Six months of no children squealing as they chased one another. 

Six months of no elder advice.

The leather jacket in Sasha’s hands feels heavy and dull, not even the bright colours hand-painted onto its back feel alive. 

Crafting your own leather jacket, it’s a rite of passage second only to the initiation beat down. He’d been so excited, starting work on it before waiting for a black eye and a broken arm to heal. As a result, some of the cutting was haggard, but that was half the charm. At least he could see straight by the time he’d started painting.

But now he could see none of that charm. The Mentats had well and truly worn off. 

Metal scrapes along a rocky floor as the door to the yurt peels open. McMurphy steps in first and, after eyeing Sasha as though he was going to leap up and attack them, moves to slump down on the sleeping mat opposite. Jessup, instead, resolves to hover in the doorway and straighten his mohawk. 

A new quiet falls over them. Tense and uncomfortable. Even with how muddied Sasha’s senses feel, he still feels that.

“I’m not staying.” The words tumble out of him and he’s too numb to stop them.

“What?” That shocks Jessup out of his stupor enough to have him stumble into the yurt with the rest of them. He stands between Sasha and McMurphy and looks back and forth, “You don’t mean that Sasha.”

“I do. I _can’t_ stay here.”

“But Papa didn’t kick you out, tell him McMurphy.” 

McMurphy does no such thing. Instead, he sits and rubs the back of his head with his hand. Jessup doesn’t react well.

“No fucking way, this isn’t what Khans do. We’re supposed to stick together,” Jessup leans forward and points at the ground he stands on, then sways backwards, “Papa will get it soon, right? Everyone else is going to get as done with this shit as we are.”

For a long moment, the other two don’t grace him with a response. Jessup’s whole body sways as he turns to face them with an incredulous look. Sasha runs his fingers carefully along the painted design of the jacket, careful not to dig his nails in and damage it. Jessup focuses the full power of his stare on the side of McMurphy’s head, who does his best to ignore it while he thinks of something to say. 

Eventually, the only thing McMurphy can say is, “You really wanna go?”

Sasha is quiet for a long moment.

Papa Khan, flanked by a raiding party, had found Sasha, aged six and a half, collapsed under the midday sun. He’d run from his village until his little legs had failed him. Papa was kind. He knelt before Sasha in a way that shielded his sunburnt skin from the sun. He’d taken off his helmet and let Sasha touch the horns to sate his curiosity. 

Sasha remembered when Papa had asked him if he was lost, if he needed help finding home, and he’d shaken his head so violently he’d felt sick afterwards. 

Papa had smiled at that. A soft, sad smile that had melted his otherwise grizzled features. 

_“Then maybe, cub, your real home has found you.”_

He was carried back to camp. Fed, watered, clothed. Given a place to sleep and a mother to care for him. Nix was her name, from Phoenix, Arizona. She’d slathered his tender skin in soothing aloe. She helped mix paints and dyes for the rugs and jackets the Khans made for themselves. Before her eyes failed her, she’d been a sniper. 

Even if she wasn’t blind, she wouldn’t have seen what had killed her at Bitter Springs.

 _The last thing you never see._

Bitter Springs has changed Papa. That’s what Regis had said. Sasha should have listened. He really should have fucking listened. Regis is the man who had been Papa’s right hand for forty years. He was an oracle for fucks sake. Why didn’t he just _listen_?

But why didn’t Regis stand up for him either?

Sasha realises that he’s been hugging his jacket to his chest, lost in thought. McMurphy and Jessup eye him carefully, like he’s unpredictable. And honestly, he feels it. His mind’s doing loops trying to find someone to blame. 

_You really wanna go?_

Maybe the truth is no ones at fault. But that’s not an answer.

Finally, he speaks.

“I do.”

McMurphy nods slowly, “Then--” he looks pointedly at Jessup, who’s still wide eyed with disbelief, “--Guess we’ll help you.”

“You don’t have to do that.” 

“Well we can’t come with you.” It seems that that was enough to sway Jessup, but he corrects himself, “ _I_ can’t. I gotta look after Chance and--y’know.”

“It’s okay,” Sasha tries a smile, unsuccessfully, “Just as long as you guys stay safe out here.” 

“You’d need to head somewhere independent of NCR. At least at first. Goodsprings, Freeside, Westside, Novac.” McMurphy clears some space on the ground and starts drawing a map with his finger, starting with Red Rock and trailing roads outwards. He carves an X in the space between them and Goodsprings, “You won’t make it going that way.”

“I’m glad I just radiate confidence.”

“I mean it.” 

McMurphy was no scout, but he had a knack for landmarks and a good memory. If he hadn’t been such a gunner, he would have made a good one. It is perhaps a good thing then, that he often defaulted to the leader when it came to smaller parties. And that wasn’t just because he was the firstborn of the Great Khan generation.

After explaining the best routes to take to avoid run-ins with Fiends and other gangs, McMurphy leans away from his map. 

“You’ll need a change of clothes too. Keep the jeans but--a shirt at least. Melissa might have one she won’t mind you keeping. Should fit, you’re about her size. Her dad might even be able to help you get into NCR if you really wanted.”

“You really gonna be gone for good?” Jessup’s been silent up until this point. 

“I don’t know,” Sasha says at first, then reaches up to rub his face. Try to rub away the blurry feeling brought about by Mentats that have just stopped working, “I just need some time. Maybe not forever but--maybe.”

Jessup is quiet again, not satisfied but not arguing. Then he reaches out, carefully picks up Sasha’s discarded jacket and folds it in his lap.

“Then I’ll hold onto this until you come back.” 

The smile Sasha tries again comes much more naturally this time, fond and soft. These truly are his brothers, Khan or not. 

“Take good care of it.”

“Promise.”


End file.
